The term “passive electronic device” is generally used to refer to an electronic device incapable of producing energy in the form of voltage or current. Some passive electronic devices act as computing accessories that plug into and receive energy from a host, such as a pair of headphones or a microphone. Utility of a passive electronic device may depend, in part, on the ability of a host device to identify the specific type of passive electronic device to which it is connected. For example, a host supplying power to an audio headset may implement different gain adjustments for different types of headsets where each gain adjustment is specifically tuned to maximize the user experience for a specific headset.